Demo Garden

A little-known asset in downtown Des Moines is the Better Homes and Gardens Demonstration Garden. It's a working garden of the publishing company, used for various purposes including photos, events, and so on. As a working garden it's generally closed to the public except Fridays 12-2pm from May through September. It's a beautiful spot for lunch, sketching, garden browsing and simply for chilling out.
 

I go to the garden as often as possible during the summer months for all of the reasons I mentioned above. Today started rainy and dark, but by midday the sky cleared, so I spent an hour there. The sketch below of a sunny corner was the result. 

"In the Garden," wc and ink on paper, about 3.5x6

 

Blue Domes

I'm not certain why we love Santorini, the Greek island, but most people do. It's a hot, dry crescent of land, a rim of an ancient volcanic caldera. The other rim is nearly gone and the ocean flooded into what is now a big bay. There is little water, hot sun, steep cliffs, and high prices. But tourists and vacationers still flock to Santorini. It may be the model for Atlantis. 

"Santorini Rooftops," oil on panel, 8x8, private collection

This particular lanscape is based on my reference photos, taken during a visit there.
 

Sherman Hill

Sketching buildings and other structures can be daunting. When I do that kind of sketch I look first for the big shapes--volume shapes, not simple shapes. That is, I look for cubes, spheres (or spherical shapes), and so on. If you start that way you can make the sketch more solid looking. Next I spend a great deal of time making sure of the perspective I'm using. Most times it's two point perspective, but sometimes different. I don't use a straight edge, just "eyeball" it. 

Here's an ink and watercolor sketch of an apartment building in an old and funky neighborhood just northwest of downtown. Many of the houses are Victorian, but there is a smattering of 1930s low-rise brick apartments and houses. I chose this one for it's rather ornate facade. There was only enough time to do the left side but that provides enough information to complete the work if need be.

"Up on Sherman Hill," ink and wc, about 6x9

Glass

Glass is a fascinating subject to paint. Beginning painters are sometimes baffled by a glass subject and forget to address whatever is seen through it. Water can provide the same puzzlement. But unlike water, glass is at least solid and still. Glass is transparent but it's also often tinted slightly green by iron compounds, especially when seen tangentially. 

These two small studies of a studio magnifying glass (both are 6x8, oil on panel) show the green tint of the lens glass, especially the second one. Both of these date over a decade ago and are part of a body of sketches done as studio warmups. Small size, limited subject and limited time meant the opportunity to do many studies over a set period of months. The green color is slightly more blue in real life.

Bonobo

Our human species has several cousins--most know chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. But few seems to know about bonobos. They've been called "dwarf chimpanzees" but aren't actually chimps. They're a separate species. Unlike chimps, they're matriarchal in social organization and generally peaceable. They prefer to make love, not war. But they're endangered because of habitat loss and being hunted.

"Bonobo," digital drawing

I drew this as part of a series of endangered species some years back and exhibited in an online show.

Another Saturday

One of the greatest things about the regular Saturday sketch group is that it provides a regular and somewhat structured opportunity to use different media--mostly watercolor and ink. A side benefit is the visual journal the resultant works have provided over the years. You can go back from year to year and even day to day to see what the world looked like then. You can see refinements and changes in painting methods. And you can simply look at the images as a way to document the world. 

"Greenwood Park," wc and ink

This week's Saturday sketch is a corner of Greenwood Park, a lush urban park behind the Art Center. The park connects to the south with the Raccoon River valley and thence to Waterworks Park. It's a semi-landscaped park that gradually gives in to wild ungroomed woods. There is an outdoor pavilion that's used for plays and concerts, too. I sat on a bench near the pavilion and sketched the path leading into the seating area. Out of view on the right is the stage and chairs. 

This work began with a graphite sketch, then watercolors. I emphasized shapes and added contrasts with waterproof ink, then went back to accentuate shapes, colors, and values using more paint

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Skullduggery

Although still life has always been an interest of mine, the output of nature mort from here has been small over the last few years. But when the weather changes this fall and the cold months return I plan on doing more still life. So last weekend I spent some time rummaging through older work for inspirations. 

One of my favorite inclusions in still life is the human skull. It's an incredibly intricate set of bones. The skull is a group of bones, some fused together, some less so, not a single unit. There a innumerable nooks and crannies, openings, depressions, points of interconnection and more. It's one of an anatomist's ultimate challenges. In art, the skull has figured as subject matter almost forever. The most interesting is the use of the skull as a memento mori (remember: you will die) or vanitas ("vanity of vanities, all is vanity") to remind viewers of universal mortality. 

"Risk Factors," oil on panel, 20x16

"Risk Factors" is a vanitas work of mine from over a decade ago. The title is derived from the medical term, a kind of laundry list of behaviors and circumstances that increase a person's chances of developing a particular condition. In this painting, we see a salt shaker, butter in a dish, a pack of cigarettes, a donut, and the skull with reversed ballcap. Prominent risk factors for heart attack include high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, smoking, and diabetes, obviously implied here. The reversed ball cap is a comment on being unconciously silly.

"Vanitas Study," oil on canvas, 20x16

A companion to Risk Factors is the study (above) I did that included only the skull and cap. In this one two are perched on the same stand but it's covered with blue cloth. This one was simply a way to work hard at observing the skull and its intricacies.

New Landscape

This one, "Boulder" is the newest studio landscape I've released. It's partly imagined, partly reference-based. The subjects of moving water, reflected lights, hard vs. soft (stones/water) attracted my interest, but quite a lot of the result aren't in the reference photo. 

"Boulder," oil on panel, 14x11

Thunderstorm

"Stormy Savannah," oil on panel, 11x14

Studio landscapes have been occupying a lot of my painting time this spring. Even though outdoor work beckons, I've been trying to finish a few indoor works. This one, "Stormy Savannah" was based on photo references, sketches, and other oil paintings. It was an attempt to show how thunderstorms march across the prairie here in the upper Midwest.